Travelling friends

Pharr, TX

As you may recall, I dashed off to the Balkans in September, in the midst of my No Fixed Address North American Tour. That trip was a group tour, and one of the Canadian couples who call Sarnia home, are also “winter Texans”. They have a place in Pharr, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley, where they can forget about Canadian winters for three months of the year. When we discovered while touring in September that I would be travelling near them on my travels back in North America, they very kindly invited me to visit with them in Pharr. So today, that’s exactly what I did.

I headed off South Padres Island, on to State highway 48 over to Brownsville and onto Interstate 69 north and then Interstate 2 west and then over to Pharr. I had no problem finding them and we a lovely afternoon and evening.

After a quick catch up, they took me on a tour around the area to give me a sense of this place. The Rio Grande is the border between the U.S., and Mexico on the west side of Texas and our first stop was the one of the many border crossings over the Rio Grande. The unique thing about this crossing is that it is the only hand-pulled ferry on any of the border crossing along the US/Mexican border. We didn’t actually cross into Mexico but rather stood on the edge of no-mans land at the customs plaza to watch the traffic come and go by ferry. (Don’t worry, the US Border patrol told us exactly where we could stand without leaving the US of A). It was too far away to be able to make out the mechanism for the towing process, but it appeared that they used the momentum of the current and a pulley system and pushed and pulled the rope running from bank to bank, instead of hand over hand pull the ferry across. Quite odd, but it worked and we saw several loads of cars and pedestrians safely crossing. This crossing is used primarily by people visiting with family back and forth and not much commercial activity.

It appeared from the surrounding dilapidated buildings (some that still had duty-free signs), that this used to be more of a well-used route, perhaps before one of the nearby bridges was built. Now it’s pretty sleepy place, but with quite a large, new-looking school and a cute little church with beautiful cobalt blue stained glass windows.

Next it was off to another small town further to the east, near the Rio Grande, Hidalgo, where there was a former pumping station originally for flood irrigation of the cotton fields and eventually for irrigation of citrus trees and other crops using a system of irrigation canals and water from the Rio Grande. Problem was the Rio Grande flooded back in 1933 and the course of the Rio Grande changed so much that the pumping station was left high and dry. So a channel was dug to bring water to the pumping station until 1983 when it was closed down. Other pumping stations have taken over the task, using the same system of irrigation canals.

In recent times the old pump house was made into a museum and park. It was interesting to see the huge pumps, input pipes, and boilers, and other equipment in the plant and to read about the huge amount of water that was used to flood the fields. (I recall 1 million gallons to grow one bushel of cotton but don’t quote me on that)

There is a World Birding Centre on the grounds around the pump house, where they have landscaped to attract birds and butterflies. There Is also a display of the town on a brick walkway that shows the street set up of the town as it was before the flood in 1933 including a creek representing the Rio Grande. And a lovely little amphitheatre.

We saw a photographer there and a young family with a young girl in a huge big beautiful dress and tiara and Carolyn explained to me that there is a Latin American custom of celebrating the young girl’s 15th birthday and coming into womanhood with a huge party and festivities. This celebration is called a Quinceaneras.

Then it was back to Carolyn and Wayne’s for a delicious dinner and more chatter. A thoroughly enjoyable day. Who knows maybe we’ll next meet in Sarnia when my trailer goes on its Ontario tour.